After reading this thread until my eyes glazed over I decided that I was ready to take the plunge. I picked up by TiVo at a local store and headed directly to the local Comcast full-service store in Redmond, WA with my Motorola STB in hand. The lady behind the counter didn't blink when I told her that I was turning in (aka not "exchanging") my STB and asked for two cable cards for my S3. After punching in some numbers she took the STB, turned around, picked out two CCs, turned around to hand me the CCs, asked me to sign for them, and then told me I had to call Comcast to activate the cards. When I asked if there were any charges involved she said "no" and reminded me that I was entitled to free Digital Plus service for a year.

I unpacked my S3 at home while having lunch and read over the CC installation instructions. I spent a few minutes online activating the TiVo service and immediately began plugging in the cables in a staging area next to the TV. Guided Setup was uneventful.

After inserting the first CC and taking down all of the numbers I decided to risk it and plug in the second CC. Once I had the second set of numbers I called Comcast. The first call was dropped by my flakey Cingular service, so I called back. The second CSR saw the note from the first CSR that I was setting up an S3 and she proceeded to ask me for the Host and Data number from both cards.

She signaled both cards and we got mixed results. CC1 was receiving some channels, but CC2 wasn't.

She sent out a second set of signals. Both cards starting receiving the lower basic channels (2-29) plus some other random channels, but not the expanded basic channels (20-69). I then asked her to signal the cards individually.

The third signal to CC1 worked! The S3 was receiving all basic channels, expanded basic channels, simulcast HD channels from local stations, and other freely included HD channels (i.e. ESPN-HD, Discovery HD Theatre). The third signal to CC2 was just as successful.

Since this is a holiday weekend I very politely and sincerely thanked her for all of her help and for her patience and she was very appreciative.

After taking a break and having dinner I disconnected the S3 in the staging area and carefully, and properly, added it to my home theater cabinet with the cables now going in or through the AV receiver instead of directly between the TV and S3. After setting up my Season Passes I reprogrammed my Harmony 880 to recognize the S3 as another device and programmed it for TiVo activity.

Some notes:

* For those of you thinking of heading out to a local Comcast center to ask for cards: I recommend you use the Comcast web site to find local payment centers and then click on the link that describes the center. Some centers only take payments; other's take payments and equipment, but can't issue equipment. I have three local centers, but only one them was a full-service Comcast store.

* Even though it took multiple attempts to get the CCs activated I believe that I actually spent less time on the phone with the CSR than I did standing in line at the Comcast store.

* Each locality seems to have different rates and policies. It looks like in the general Seattle area the two CCs for the S3 are free, but this may not be the case in your area. Based on the posting in this long thread it looks like the second most common rate is to issue the first CC for free and charge $1.50 for the second CC. The HD fee is suspect as I believe that you should get local HD simulcasts for free as part of your digital package. Even with the STB I was getting non-premium HD channels without paying extra beyond the DVR fee.

Yes, but I wouldn't call them, I would go to the local office in person. It may be a hassle, but in my experience they are much more flexible and easier to deal with in person.

Also, you need to be a little clearer on what you have. I'm assuming you have an S3 with 2 CableCARDs and no other Comcast equipment and only one outlet(for the S3). If so, you should be charged as outlined above, the programming package(whatever it is) and $1.50 for the 2nd CC, no other charges(other than locals fees and taxes). Comcast has, or should have if your particular office hasn't had a billing upgrade, a specific dual CC line entry on their billing program for customer supplied equipment, such as the S3.

So I picked up 3 cable cards from the Auburn, WA store last saturday. Zero problems, zero charge. My S3 arrived on Thursday (costco) and I installed 2 cards into the S3, zero problems. I installed the 3rd card into my Pioneer, some slight problems but got it working. I now have TNT-HD, ESPN-HD and more that I wasn't receiving before on my QAM tuner. The cable cards ROCK!! AFAIK I'm not being charged the $5 a month on the extra HD channels, which is great.

Now I just need 1TB hard drives to come out and be affordable!! I sold my 364 hour S2 TiVo yesterday.

Question: what are you guys paying? I was on the $6.95 a month plan and can't get to it directly. I don't want to lock in $19.99 a month for a year or any of the other plans. Do I have options?

I'm surprised they didn't charge you $1.50 for the 3rd card but that's great. You don't have to pay $5 for the HD. That would be for a set top box fee. Your digital channel lineup has the channel cost in it.

I haven't paid in a while since I had lifetimes on my S2's. I just transferred one S2 to the S3 so if you have one lifetime, you could do that. Tivo told me when I transferred they currently still had the multi discount as $6.95. If you go longer than 1 year, the price drops from the $20. I think they have 3 year at $299 (about $8-$9).

I'm in the Redmond area and currently am subscribing to limited cable ($15/mo). It comes with a bunch of digital channels but only a few are HD, and those are all local channels (komo, king, ...)

Am I supposed to be able to watch those digital channels? Their channel lineup seem to imply that customer cannot receive digital channels unless they have a comcast cable box. But of course anyone with a ATSC tuner TV will see those channels.

If I buy the s3 and request cablecards from comcast, would they tell me to upgrade to some sort of digital package before giving me the cablecards?

I had the same limited in Sammamish and in Redmond they said they don't issue cablecards with limited service. They do at basic, which is about $45 a month but you get more channels also. Depends on what you want. You need the CC's to do Tivo Season Pass recordings (unless there is a way around that). I could program my local HD channels manually and record that way though.

No, it looks like they removed Digital Classic and added Digital Plus. Comcast just added Digital Plus here in Santa Rosa, it adds stuff like the Military channel and a few Discovery networks spawns.

OK, you have a point, I wasn't clear. Here we go: Since Comcast took off Digital Classic and added Digital Plus for the same price as Classic, it's like getting the Plus "channels" for free; I'm still paying for digital service. When the free Plus upgrade expires I'll downgrade back down to classic.

It is pretty common knowlege from the many posts in this thread and the public statements from Comcast that unless one has a Comcast HD set top box there is no $5 HD fee for users of the S3, only a $1.50 charge for the use of the 2nd cable card.

Are the "public statements from Comcast" JLIB and other posters have referred to available in written form accessible to members of this forum? Based upon my own experience with numerous Comcast customer service supervisors here in South Florida, I'd love to see those "public statements" in writing. Otherwise, they are just rumors dismissed out of hand by the many reps I've spoken with.

I have 2 S3s, each with two cable cards, and a stand-alone TV with one cable card. I subscribe to "digital plus" and HBO, and get HD signals for all local TV channels as well as HBO, Discovery, TNT, INHD, and ESPN. I am being charged 5 times for HD service at $5 each (one charge per cable card), and 4 times for additional outlets at $4.99 each (one charge per cable card, after the first one free with my digital package)[now $6.99 each, see comment at end of this post]. Assuming my stand-alone cable-card-equippedTV is the one outlet I get for free with my digital plan, I am paying $19.98 monthly for each S3 (2x$5 plus 2x$4.99), plus $5 for HD signals to the stand-alone TV. Comcast customer service says I could toss the S3s in the trash, and get two of their set-top box dual-tuner DVRs for $9.95 each plus one additional outlet charge (at $6.99 per month each) for a total of $16.94 per Comcast HD DVR box. Therefore, tossing my new S3s, I could save $6.08 per month (2x $3.04 per box), and as part of the deal get two Comcast HD DVRs which they will replace if ever anything goes wrong with them - not a bad warranty. Why, if you are paying $800 per Tivo HD box, thus saving Comcast a bundle in hardware and warranty-service charges, should you pay more than someone renting Comcast HD DVR equipment?

The $5 HD charge per cable card is coincidentally the same surcharge Comcast applies to each customer using Comcast STB's, when they swap-out their standard STB's for their HD-capable STBs. Neither of these boxes has DVR capability. The DVR boxes come with the HD service for free, for both of the included dual tuners, at a cost of $9.95 per month per box.

You would think that the $6.99 additional outlet charge is for the cost of the second STB for the typical Comcast Tivo-free customer, and the $5 charge is for each upgraded HD-STB that replaces the standard STB for the typical customer. And that those are hardware rental charges levied to defray the cost of all the additional HD-capable hardware -- but not according to my Comcast Customers Service reps. According to them, the hardware is all free! The charges are not for hardware but for the services, which I as a Tivo user am sucking up from Comcast just as fast as any loyal Comcast hardware user.

Curiously, I am not being charged $1.50 per cable card as are many posters to this forum, and the $4.99 extra-outlet charge is $2.00 less than a Comcast set-top box additional outlet charge. But I am paying for two of those outlet charges per S3, for total of $9.98 per S3, which is $2.99 higher than the one extra-outlet charge for an equivalent dual-HD tuner Comcast DVR box.

Comcast is charging me as much as they possibly can, using concepts that do not acknowledge their cost for their own equipment, and doing so in a way that makes me pay more for identical cable service because I use cable cards with Tivo hardware. You would think that sparing Comcast the cost of purchasing and maintaining two Comcast DVRs and one Comcast HD STB that would be required to duplicate the service I have now, should result in my paying less per month than if I were dependent upon them for all that hardware, but you would be wrong. This predatory pricing looks like a considered and planned effort on the part of Comcast to drive Tivo out of business, and they may not have to hit every market in the US uniformly for this scheme to succeed.

Can or will Tivo do anything to address this? Is Comcast's pricing scheme for cable-card users in violation of FCC regulations? Is Comcast's apparent plan to run Tivo out of business with predatory pricing a violation of US antitrust laws? Will the FCC or Justice Department do anything about it? If not, those of us in South Florida who purchased a Tivo S3 may have made a big mistake.

NOTE: A few hours after posting the above, I was informed by Comcast that the $4.99 charge for additional outlets on my bill was a mistake, and that the charge should have been $6.99. So now I'm paying $5.00 for the first cable card, and $11.99 ($5.00 plus $6.99) for each one of my other 4 cable cards installed in my two S3s, for a total of $52.96 per month. If I gave back all my cable cards and ditched my S3s and replaced them with 2 Comcast DVRs and an HD STB for the third TV, I'd be paying $38.88 per month total. Those cable cards cost Comcast a lot less than two DVRs and an STB, but they are charging me more, not less, for supplying my own equipment. Both monthly figures were confirmed by Comcast HQ in Philly.

Last edited by Warlord46; 02-26-2007 at 12:18 PM..
Reason: New Comcast charges

You should call up your Comcast office and show them the TCF poll of what others are paying Comcast for cable cards. I would be pretty pissed if I had to pay 10 times as much as somebody else for the same exact thing, from the same exact company.

Warlord, let's see if we can dig up some concrete info for you in your duel with Comcast. In any case, for now, with your environment you should be liable for 2 additional outlet and 4 additional cable card charges:

Edit: OK, I was going to suggest the announcements that we got in our bills (here in CA) but now after looking at the list of subsidiaries section of the Comcast 10-K it looks like there are actually hundreds of different "Comcasts" across the country. Maybe there really is no national pricing structure?

First 2 cards I got never worked, all said Waiting for CP Auth. They couldn't do anything, had to have a tech come out. He did, worked with them for awhile, my account was all screwed uo in relation to cablecards, never worked, so they had him try some more cards, and they figured out that these never were entered into their system, as they've had problems with that. So all they could do was get new cards, the comcast guy was nice enough, and tried his best, I dont fault him. He even went back to the office grabbed 4 more cablecards with an appropriate date that the cableheadend guys told him would work, get here and 2 of them have a technical problem [thats what tivo said]. and the other 2 says my cable company knows nothing of these cards. What a headache, since I have to work all week, the next time they can come and try is Saturday! This is such a headache!

I sure hope something is fixed on Saturday! Being able to only watch the analog until then sucks [the qam tuner will pick up Discovery HD at least, so I might scan that again, but everythign else but Digital Nick, and Tube is encrypted, unfortunatly].

the second one put me on hold for 12 mins, she 'spoke to a supvr' and told me the cablecards were only to used in TVs

the third one knew everything about S3, and got me scheduled for a 'steal-me-from D*' install next week.

she also noted in the dispatch assignment that i requested a cablecard expert for my home visit. i wonder if i made a strategic error, with that little request.

anyway, just keep trying...
hey, ask for stephanie! and remember to request to leave a nice message on Plymouth, MI sales supvr kevin's voicemail. she says that he will send a nice email about her to the entire crew. any kudos seen by others will reinforce that little thought 'i need to learn more about S3s'

__________________No sense being pessimistic about it... it probably wouldn't work anyway

I'd agree with Roulette. Waited 25 minutes for the first CSR wanted to charge me the HDTV equipment charge for non digital customers ($10.50), she put me on hold and I dropped after 10 minutes. The second CSR (Judith) said they don't support TiVo, cablecards are for LCD's, etc. Nice about it, just not informed on S3. She went off to talk to the supervisor, came back and assured me she had it right. I asked to talk to the supervisor, I explained it to him (Tivo S3 is cablelabs certified, etc). He finally called 'dispatch', got the real skinny. So they said I need a digital package (ok), and the cable card is 7.95. I said 'each?', I had heard their 1.50... finally he straightened it out. Digital package including first cable card free + 1.99 for the extra cable card.

I selected the "Digital Variety" package, which gives me HBO, Showtime, Stars all times 5-6. Way more than I need, it's on a 'one year promotion' of $74.95, up from my analog preferred which is (1/07) 54.95. Note for anyone at Comcast who wonders why they should support Tivo S3: I bought an S3, you're now pulling in an extra 21.99/month. I feel like I was 'upsold', but at least it looks correct.

I was going to suggest the announcements that we got in our bills (here in CA) but now after looking at the list of subsidiaries section of the Comcast 10-K it looks like there are actually hundreds of different "Comcasts" across the country. Maybe there really is no national pricing structure?

I'm afraid you're right, there is no national pricing structure. That makes it difficult to police them. Good idea to check the online 10K.

But it gets even worse: today I called the local governmental authority about the problem, and in response I got a call from Comcast sayikng their pricing is correct, but that they had made a mistake by charging me only $4.99 per additional outlet, and that I've been getting a bargain! I've got 4 of them being charged to me, which are going up to $6.99 per outlet, for an additional $8 per month. So now I'm paying $23.98 per Tivo, instead of $16.94 I would be charged for each Comast DVR.

They said it was a coincidence that they caught the mistake the day I complained about them. That is about as truthful as their claim that all their hardware is free.

This Tivo was a gift to us. We have 2 Tivo Series 2's and now a Tivo series 3. All I can say is that the past week has been a complete headache trying to deal with all the idiots at Comcast. My husband and I cannot get one person that knows what they are doing at Comcast. The technical support does not seem to know what they are doing. When calling, which we have called at least 30-40 times, not many people even know what a Tivo is. Do I have to sit here and Teach these people what a Tivo is? And, to make matters worse, these people don't even know much about their own cable cards. The tech support should be called STUPID SUPPORT because not one person knows anything about cable cards. Two technicians have already been to my house and they both didn't know what they were doing. I'm not trying to bash anyone, just really beyond frustrated. I've had many many arguments with comcast which nothing has been resolved quite yet. I asked for technicians to come out that know about cable cards. Obviously, nobody at Comcast knows anything.

Supposedly, I paid $16.50 for them to come out the first time. Then $39.90 for the installation of 2 cable cards. The first cable card is free and $1.50 for the second cable card. I have not heard anything as of yet about the outlet charges of $4.99. I'm sure i'll see that on my first bill seeing as to how unprofessional comcast is. I'm one step away from throwing out the Tivo and cancelling comcast for good. I already filed a claim with the Better Business Bureau as well. The most frustrating thing is to call comcast and ask to speak to a supervisor and are told a supervisor will call back, well guess what? Nobody ever calls you back! Good luck to anyone in Michigan with this huge comcast dilemma. It just doesn't seem like anyone at comcast knows what they are doing. I also believe Tivo filed some sort of report to the FCC about the cable cards in October.

By the way, the cable cards I was given were the Motorola version. I read those were supposed to be easier to install or better for some reason. Apparently, even those aren't working.

Good Luck to all of you! I think we got Tivo 3 way to early in this game and should have waited a few years. But who can wait when you have an HDTV?

Definitely don't expect them to know about the competiting products you choose to introduce to their system. Focus on their equipment (i.e., the CableCARDs) and their service, and they can help you out from that perspective.

I avoided saying "TiVo" unless asked, I used the more generic "DVR". ("Its a DVR it needs 2 cable cards".) They have DVRs so they should know what that means.

I made sure to tell them it was a Tivo .. because I heard through these forums that if they know its a Tivo, they will send out an actual Comcast tech rather than a 3rd party tech who may not be as well trained in Tivo installs.

For what its worth, when I told them I had a Tivo S3, they sent out a real Comcast rep who really knew his stuff. All done and ready to go in about 30 min.

I made sure to tell them it was a Tivo .. because I heard through these forums that if they know its a Tivo, they will send out an actual Comcast tech rather than a 3rd party tech who may not be as well trained in Tivo installs.

For what its worth, when I told them I had a Tivo S3, they sent out a real Comcast rep who really knew his stuff. All done and ready to go in about 30 min.

Interestingly, you can actually ask them for a "ComCast in-house tech" and they will schedule it.

I've had a somewhat hit or miss with anyone who shows up (in-house or not), but the in-house guys tend to be better.

There is no doubt that they avoid teaching anyone about cable cards in order to make sure things don't go well...

__________________
3 x Tivo Premier Units
1 x TivoHD unit

Every seen the movie office space? These Tivos are in the Xerox II graveyard:

I was able to pick up the cable cards from the local comcast store. It was easy as pie. After I got them home, I did have to call to activate and then again to get digital channels. Otherwise, it was an ok experience aside from having to make two phone calls.